Candidate compound cures malaria in mouse model

By Sharon KingmanStaff Writer

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

LONDON – A new generation of therapies for malaria, which target a molecule that has a crucial role in the parasite’s life cycle, could enter clinical trials within just a few years, researchers said. The discovery flowed from a research program that used new medicinal chemistry and biotechnological techniques to validate new drug targets. Those methods allowed the researchers to identify the function of the target molecule in the human malaria parasite and, subsequently, with the help of traditional drug discovery strategies, to find compounds that inhibit that molecule.